Ladies, stop sitting at home looking through your Instagram feed wishing you were “that girl”. BE that girl! Take your adventure into your own hands. If you let fear of the unknown consume you, then you will never know what greatness lies in the outdoors. I believe by properly preparing yourself, there is no destination that cannot be reached by a group of women, or even a woman trekking out into the wild on her own. By preparing yourself, you CAN DO THIS! It's like this; Know your trail. Know your waterway. Know your limits.

As we were pulling together the idea for the Kentucky Waterman Series, one of our most ardent supporters of the concept was Pat Dour, owner of Southern Paddlesports; a performance paddlesports company based in Taylorsville, Kentucky.

When your body finally tells you to eat, make your way to one of the gorge’s staple spots. Grab pizza at Miguel’s or a burger at Red River Rock House. Fill your empty stomach and forget to count the carbs, the calories, the grams of sugar in your Ale 8. Meet the people seated with you — the group of businessmen from California, the RRG regulars, the guys who live a neighborhood over from you.

The Spoke Easy is the newest addition to one of the hippest small towns in Kentucky. Located in downtown Campbellsville, TSE is the city's first bike shop in a couple of decades. The outdoor recreational scene is growing in the area because of the great trails at Green River Lake State Park, making this the perfect time for a bike shop to open.

I took what I’d call a reconnaissance trip to The Breaks in 2012. I wanted to look at it with my new climber’s perspective, and I was thrilled with what I found. Several sport routes had already been developed. Assuming (generally a bad idea) that climbing was permitted, I got a crew of Lexington climbers together to explore the new territory. That’s when I met Austin Bradley.

Writing about the great outdoors is incredibly intimidating when you haveThoreau's Walden and Leopold’s Sand County Almanac at your bedside stand. But here it goes, and I’ll do my best not to murder their legacy with this page out of my sketchbook…

Would you believe me if I told you that I have lived within 15 miles of the Red River Gorge the majority of my life and that at 32 years old, this summer was the first time I ever set foot in it?! I’m afraid it’s true.

In our day & age, it is knee-jerk to make mountains out of molehills or walk on egg-shells around topics of racism. Is a man creating a motel pattern after a Sioux tribe racist or was he simply replicating a culture he admired you'd decide.

I’m a Kentucky girl. And I love this land like the desert loves the rain. I thrive off of it. Our land's geography is so amazingly diverse from east to west and I retreat to it when I need to steady my soul. I love hiking and repelling the mountains and forests, driving the winding one lane back roads, exploring caves and roaming Kentucky everywhere in between.

Greetings, fellow explorers! China Riddle here - a native Pike Countian, senior at Alice Lloyd College, foodie, and mini-adventure enthusiast. As much as I would love to be a member of the Explore Kentucky field team, I am moving after my graduation in December. So, they have graciously allowed me to act as a guest blogger.

I'm from a small town in Eastern Kentucky called Jenkins. I don't get to go home often, but I recently took a trip there, and ended up having several sessions. I like using a model to test out new locations, and that's what Ashley helped me do. We went to Fish Pond Lake to scout out the area, and so that I could figure out some poses for an upcoming senior.